Several decades of research on 'urban agriculture' have led to markedly different conclusions about the actual and potential role of household food production in African cities. In the context of rapid urbanization, urban agriculture is, once again, being advocated as a means to mitigate the growing food insecurity of the urban poor. This article examines the contemporary importance of household food production in poor urban communities in 11 different Southern African Development Community (SADC) cities. It shows that urban food production is not particularly signifi cant in most communities and that many more households rely on supermarkets and the informal sector to access food. Even fewer households derive income from the sale of produce. This picture varies considerably, however, from city to city, for reasons that require further research and explanation.

http://www.afsun.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/PIDS-Urban-Agriculture.pdf

Food security in Southern African cities: The place of urban agriculture

Talk of ‘ensonga za Ssenga’ (Ssenga matters) among the Baganda people of Uganda signifies an institution that has endured through centuries as a tradition of sexual initiation. At the helm is the paternal (or surrogate) aunt whose role is to tutor young women in a range of sexual matters, including pre-menarche practices, pre-marriage preparation, erotics and reproduction. In contemporary Uganda, commercial Ssenga services abound, with Ssenga columns and call-in radio programmes and Ssenga booklets for sale on Kampala’s streets. The institution is being transformed by ‘modernisation’ and urbanisation, redrawing the boundaries of Ssenga to suit the times. This article suggests that while Ssenga facilitates and reinforces patriarchal power, at the same time it subverts and parodies patriarchy. Through a deconstruction of the arrangement of gender and sexuality in Ssenga, this article investigates constructs of Kiganda sexuality, and of femininity and masculinity within them.

/pdf/eroticism-sensuality-and-women-s-secrets-among-the-baganda-47ucww8grq.pdf

Eroticism, Sensuality and ‘Women's Secrets’ Among the Baganda

Since the dawn of human civilisation, people have interacted with nature, most notably to harness the resources that have fuelled the human enterprise (Vitousek et al . 1997). The sheer rate and scale of human appropriation of natural resources has precipitated a biodiversity crisis currently being manifested in rapid rates of species extinctions, extensive transformation of the structure and function of ecosystems, and rapid alterations to the Earth's climate (Vitousek et al . 1986; Pimm & Raven 2000). The biodiversity crisis is a result of human activity, so the solutions to it will depend largely on human actions, on understanding and enhancing the way that we all interact with nature (Collins et al . 2000; Ehrlich 2002). Because most people on the planet live in towns and cities, the majority of our daily interactions with nature take place in urban environments, and this has led to a recent upsurge of interest in the dynamics of these relationships (Bradshaw & Bekoff 2000; Miller & Hobbs 2002; Pyle 2003; Saunders et al . 2006). Despite the manifest impoverishment of the natural environment in urban areas, or perhaps because of it, many urban dwellers seek out interaction with nature in some form, for example by visiting a local green space, or feeding backyard birds. Yet our understanding of these interactions is nascent, principally because their study requires work across several disciplinary boundaries (Alberti et al . 2003; Braun 2005). For example, ecologists often lack the interest or the tools to study people (Collins et al . 2000).

Urban Ecology: Interactions between people and nature in urban environments

This book is the first major study in several decades to consider Uganda as a nation, from its precolonial roots to the present day. Here, Richard J. Reid examines the political, economic, and social history of Uganda, providing a unique and wide-ranging examination of its turbulent and dynamic past for all those studying Uganda's place in African history and African politics. Reid identifies and examines key points of rupture and transition in Uganda's history, emphasising dramatic political and social change in the precolonial era, especially during the nineteenth century, and he also examines the continuing repercussions of these developments in the colonial and postcolonial periods. By considering the ways in which historical culture and consciousness has been ever present - in political discourse, art and literature, and social relationships - Reid defines the true extent of Uganda's viable national history.

A History of Modern Uganda

There is evidence to show that the institution of marriage, particularly customary law marriage, has served as an important framework for the extraction of conjugal labour as a factor in cocoa production since its introduction in the Gold Coast in 1879. This was necessitated by the abolition in 1874 of slavery and pawning, and the consequent need to replace an illegitimate and coercive system with a legitimate one. By virtue of a preexisting customary obligation placed on women to assist their husbands in their economic pursuits, the marriage institution provided a basis for this transition. It has been argued, however, that some forms of economic relationship in Ghana revolve around expectations of reciprocity, and that human beings are not altogether altruistic in their dispensation of labour. Hence, women who provide labour support to their husbands expect to be rewarded with land or cocoa farms. In this article, I argue that the pivotal role of cocoa in the rural economy intensified the use of conjugal labour and the consequent expectation of land by wives from their husbands, resulting in a situation in which cocoa, marriage, labour and land rights eventually evolved as ‘institutional quadruplets’. Through case studies extracted from field work conducted in six communities in the Brong Ahafo, Western and Volta Regions of Ghana I demonstrate the continued interplay between these forces in modern times, and outline some policy-centred concerns for the future direction of the cocoa industry.
	 Resume: Des donnees montrent que l’institution du mariage, notamment le mariage en droit coutumier, a servi de cadre important pour l’extraction du travail conjugal en tant que facteur dans la production du cacao depuis son introduction sur la Cote de l’Or en 1879. Elle repondait a une necessite apres l’abolition de l’esclavage et de la mise en gage d’etres humains en 1874, et au besoin qui en a resulte de remplacer un systeme illegitime et cœrcitif par un systeme legitime. En vertu d’une regle coutumiere preexistante obligeant les femmes a preter assistance a leurs epoux dans l’exercice de leurs activites economiques, l’institution du mariage fournissait une base a cette transition. Certains soutiennent, cependant, que certaines formes de relations economiques au Ghana portent sur des attentes de reciprocite, et que l’etre humain n’est pas entierement altruiste dans l’exercice du travail. En consequence, les femmes qui soutiennent leurs epoux par leur travail attendent en retour d’etre remunerees en terres ou exploitations de cacao. L’article soutient que le role essentiel du cacao dans l’economie rurale a intensifie l’utilisation du travail conjugal et par la-meme l’attente des femmes vis-a-vis de leurs epoux sous la forme de terres, et a abouti a une situation dans laquelle le cacao, le mariage, le travail et les droits fonciers ont fini par former des « quadruples institutionnels ». A travers des etudes de cas extraites de travaux de terrain menes aupres de six communautes des regions Brong Ahafo, Western et Volta au Ghana, l’article demontre l’interaction continue entre ces forces a l’epoque moderne, et expose des inquietudes (centrees sur la politique) sur l’orientation future de l’industrie du cacao.

Cocoa, Marriage, Labour and Land in Ghana: Some Matrilineal and Patrilineal Perspectives

ResumeLes choix qui s’offrent aux femmes sur la maniere de gagner leur vie au Mozambique ont eu un impact decisif sur le developpement des villes du Mozambique, et l’urbanisation a en retour a enrichi leur experience du travail chez elles et en dehors de la maison. Cet article examine l’histoire du travail des femmes dans les domaines des corvees domestiques, de la prostitution, de la fabrication de la biere, de l’agriculture urbaine, des ventes dans les marches et du travail dans les usines. Les activites des femmes offrent une ouverture permettant d’enqueter sur les changements observes tout au long du vingtieme siecle qui ont affecte l’organisation familiale urbaine, sur la contribution des femmes au developpement de la societe urbaine et sur leurs combats pour obtenir une transformation de l’espace urbain.

Markets and Gardens: Placing Women in the History of Urban Mozambique

Women in African Colonial Histories

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Markets and Gardens: Placing Women in the History of Urban Mozambique

Women in African Colonial Histories